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New bridge name on horizon

The old bridge is shown in September 1963. The sign says, “Welcome Savannah founded 1733.”

Savannah Morning News file photo

The Talmadge Bridge is shown on March 4, 1990, while under construction beside the old bridge.

Richard Burkhart/Savannah Morning News

A sign marks the Talmadge Bridge as traffic merges in from South Carolina and Hutchinson Island.

Richard Burkhart/Savannah Morning News

Night falls as lights from the Georgia Ports illuminate the area behind the Eugene Talmadge Memorial Bridge.

Richard Burkhart/Savannah Morning News

The sun sets behind the Talmadge Bridge.

Savannah Morning News file photo

The old bridge over the Savannah River in the 1950s.

Savannah Morning News file photo

Tollbooths on the predecessor to the Talmadge Bridge are shown May 22, 1983.

Today, the sail-like, cable-stayed bridge that serves as an iconic backdrop to Savannah and a dramatic Lowcountry portal into Georgia is named the Eugene Talmadge Memorial Bridge.

That might not be the case much longer.

The nearly 2-mile bridge that spans the Savannah River at a height of 185 feet seems destined for a new name almost exactly 22 years after it opened.

Members of the Chatham County delegation to the General Assembly this week expect to recommend a new name for the bridge, an act that will go a long way toward ending a debate that has raged since before the bridge was completed in 1991 at a cost of $71 million.

“We met on (Feb. 21), and there seems to be pretty much a consensus to move the name to the Savannah Bridge or the Savannah River Bridge,” said Rep. Ron Stephens, R-Savannah. “It just seems to make more sense to attach the name to a location or a destination and not a person.”

The new name, decided by a majority vote of the delegation, would be drafted into a bill that would have to be approved in the House and Senate and would need the signature of Gov. Nathan Deal before the state Department of Transportation would make the change.

“Amongst each other, I think everybody in the delegation agrees the name should be changed,” said Rep. J. Craig Gordon, D-Savannah. “Hopefully it’s something we can pass through in this session. We’ve only got 18 days left, but I feel by all of us working together, we can make it happen.”

The debate over the bridge’s name has raged for nearly a quarter-century. It has involved polarizing public figures, political subterfuge, confusion, simmering undercurrents of race and issues of local rule.

At its essence, the debate concerns the relatively simple task of naming a bridge. This task, however, has been anything but simple.

The debate has included elements of self-determinism, with many Savannahians believing political forces elsewhere in the state imposed the Talmadge name on the bridge without any regard for the preferences of the local citizenry, which at the time of the bridge’s opening largely seemed to embrace the name as The Great Savannah Bridge.

It has involved the city’s grasp of history, with many here making the case that a structure so tied to the international image of the city should bear a name that reflects the city’s colonial past.

Finally, for many, the debate has included a redemptive quality entwined in a belief that one of the city’s most iconic structures should cease to memorialize the bitter angels of the Jim Crow past that sat squarely on the shoulders of the race-baiting, white supremacist who was Eugene Talmadge.

“What I’ve been telling people on this issue is that I’m ABT — Anybody But Talmadge,” said Stan Deaton, senior historian at the Georgia Historical Society. “In 1953, there may have been all kinds of reasons to honor Eugene Talmadge. I’m not sure there are in 2013.

“There are plenty of other people who speak to Georgia’s past better than he does, who represent all of us better.”

Deaton’s guest commentary in the Feb. 10 edition of the Savannah Morning News, in which he made the case for renaming the bridge for Georgia founder James Edward Oglethorpe, seemed to be the tinder that reignited the most recent public debate about changing the name of the bridge.

In the following two weeks, several letters to the editor from other individuals reflected the continuing discussion throughout the city.

Some backed the idea of honoring Oglethorpe. Others offered up Tomochichi, the American Indian chief who befriended Oglethorpe and helped the original settlers craft America’s 13th colony.

Retired Maj. Gen. Leroy M. Suddath Jr. takes it a step further, taking up the historical banner by calling for the Oglethorpe-Tomochichi Bridge.

“Both of them are co-founders of Savannah in a sense, and they stand for cooperation and for everybody benefiting,” Suddath said. “Oglethorpe was the founder of Savannah, and Tomochichi made it possible by befriending Oglethorpe. We didn’t have any problems with the Indians. They welcomed us here.”

That open discussion, as well as a flurry of emails and phone calls to members of the Chatham County delegation imploring them to take up the cause of renaming the bridge, was pure populism in action.

“It’s amazing,” said Rep. Bob Bryant, D-Garden City. “I read an article in the paper and the next day everything started. I got at least 20 emails, and I assume the other representatives got as many email requests as I did.

“That tells me people are concerned.”

There was action on the city level as well.

The same day the Chatham County legislators met, Savannah alderman John Hall offered a resolution to the city’s aldermen calling on the local delegation to initiate the legislative process for renaming the bridge in honor of Oglethorpe.

Informed that the legislators are leaning more toward renaming the bridge for a destination or location, Hall made it clear he would not oppose that as long as it gets Talmadge’s name off the bridge.

“If they want to go that route, that is fine with me,” Hall said. “I wouldn’t object. I just think this needs to happen. I hope we can move quickly and get this done.”

Savannah Mayor Edna Jackson concurred, saying she strongly supports the renaming of the bridge, even if it is named the Savannah Bridge or the Savannah River Bridge.

“That’s fine with me,” Jackson said. “Savannah is a destination city. It’s the gateway to our community, as well as the gateway between South Carolina and Georgia.

“If we have to bring it back to City Council that we can come to some consensus between either Oglethorpe or Savannah Bridge.”

She said her primary motive for renaming the bridge is to strip away the Talmadge name and legacy.

“I’ve always called it ‘the new bridge’,” she said. “I’ve never referred to it as the Talmadge Bridge because that’s an insult to the African-American community. I came up through the civil rights era, and I know how we were referred to by Talmadge.”

This debate wouldn’t be complete without at least one last dose in the long, confusing history of whether the bridge was ever formally named for Talmadge or whether the name just passed over from the previous bridge it replaced.

Reps. Stephens and Bryant said their understanding is the Talmadge naming had never been formally enacted by the state transportation department.

But Natalie Dale, a transportation department spokeswoman, said the official name for the bridge is indeed the Eugene Talmadge Memorial Bridge.

“That’s a miscommunication on their behalf,” Dale said. “There are signs. We don’t just put up signs. If there are signs, the bridge is named.”